Beware government deals made secretly

(The Calgary Herald) - Before you go into the voting booth next week and do your part to help give Stephen Harper’s Conservatives a parliamentary majority, there’s something you need to think about.

Though underreported in the media, over the past few years Canada has been involved in disturbingly secretive negotiations aimed at further integrating our country with the United States.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was officially launched in 2005, though there have been multiple efforts in the same vein by various governments and think tanks for a lot longer than that.

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Conservatives losing support in key ridings: poll

(CTV.ca) - The Conservatives are losing steam in key swing ridings in Ontario, B.C. and Quebec, a development that could put a majority government out of arm’s reach for Stephen Harper.

 

“The numbers are going in the wrong direction for them to win a majority,” pollster Peter Donolo of The Strategic Counsel told CTV.ca. “This is the third time this has happened to them in a row.”

 

In the both the 2004 and 2006 elections, the Conservatives lost a significant amount in the final days leading up to the election.

 

The new Battleground 2008 poll of 45 close races, conducted by The Strategic Counsel for CTV and the Globe and Mail, comes slightly more than a week before Canadians head to the ballot boxes on Oct. 14.

 

The findings also come just days after the leaders’ debates, in which Stephen Harper was put on the defensive by his opponents over his economic and environmental record.

 

“(Harper) has to do something to regain momentum,” Donolo said. “The Conservatives are doing much better in these battleground ridings than they did last time, but they were doing much better just a few days ago.”

 

In Quebec’s battleground polling from Oct. 1-4, which looked at 15 close races in the province, the Conservatives were neck-and-neck with Liberal support and well behind the Bloc Quebecois (brackets show percentage-point change from Sept. 30-Oct. 2 poll):

READ MORE HERE [ Source: CTV.ca, Oct. 5, 2008 ]

Harper foes whip up a net storm

(rabble.ca news) - This isn’t the U.S. yet, and the results of this fall’s peculiar electoral mix won’t be decided mano-a-mano. We are a country full of different contests with their own dramas. In many ridings, unpredictable vote splits could alter the outcome. And perhaps because Stéphane Dion is so weak and the vote-shifting opportunity is so ripe, the grassroots are starting to sprout.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: rabble.ca news, Alice Klein, Sep. 18, 2008 ]

The climate crisis: Five parties, no solutions

(rabble.ca news) - Despite much sound and fury, none of the major political parties is proposing effective measures for dealing with the climate change crisis. The differences between them amount to ?Don’t do anything? versus ?Don’t do much.?

READ MORE HERE [ Source: rabble.ca news, Ian Angus, Sep. 23, 2008 ]

Hurricane Harper

(rabble.ca news) - As Nova Scotia faced up to the fearful prospect of Hurricane Kyle, all of Canada must now face the prospect of a Harper majority government. Hurricane Harper does not threaten the Atlantic provinces directly, people remember all to well the “culture of dependence” theme which Harper once evoked in talking about the region.

The Harper threat is receding in Quebec, as his negative comments about the arts and culture, and the announced intent of his government to imprison 14-year-olds with adults, has caused the popularity of his government to plummet.

Ontario is where Harper has picked up the pace and can win the seats he needs to form a majority government. Coupled with continued support on the prairies, and Liberal weakness in B.C., if the Conservatives hold on to their existing seats East of the Ottawa river, major gains in Ontario will unleash Hurricane Harper.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: rabble.ca news, Duncan Cameron, Sep. 30, 2008 ]

An open letter to Stephen Harper

(rabble.ca news) - Monsieur le premier ministre,

We are neighbours. We work across the street from one another. You are Prime Minister of the Parliament of Canada and I, across the way, am a writer, theatre director and Artistic Director of the French Theatre at the National Arts Centre (NAC). So, like you, I am an employee of the state, working for the Federal Government; in other words, we are colleagues.

Let me take advantage of this unique position, as one functionary to another, to chat with you about the elimination of some federal grants in the field of culture, something that your government recently undertook. Indeed, having followed this matter closely, I have arrived at a few conclusions that I would like to publicly share with you since, as I’m sure you will agree, this debate has become one of public interest.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: rabble.ca news, Wajdi Mouawad, Oct 1, 2008 ]

Conservative support slipping, poll suggests

(CBC.ca) - Voter support for the Conservative party has fallen a bit while that of the Liberals remains stable, the four-day running poll released by Harris/Decima on Sunday suggests.

The results are “the first bit of good news for the Liberals in a while,” Harris/Decima president Bruce Anderson said in a commentary.

The Conservatives will need to reverse the momentum suggested by the poll if they are to win a majority, Anderson said. READ MORE HERE

Cyclists frown at fees for Yukon College bike lockers

Some Whitehorse residents are giving Yukon College the gears over its new bicycle lockers, for which the college is charging $25 a month.

About a dozen lockers have been installed around the college’s Whitehorse campus in an effort to encourage people to switch from cars to bikes.

But e-mails have been flying among cyclists and environmental advocates, who point out the irony of the college charging for bicycle storage while it offers free parking and free electrical plugs for cars in the winter.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: CBC.ca ]

Bilateral accords quietly push neo-liberal agenda

Currently Canada is pursuing bilateral accords across the planet, with countries as far afield as Colombia, Korea and Jordan.

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Historic vote in Parliament for war resisters

Canadian MPs ? the majority opposition representing the majority of Canadians ? stood in support of Iraq war resisters when they voted to pass an asylum motion yesterday in Parliament.

Liberal, NDP and Bloc MPs (137 in total) stood in favour – literally stood up to vote as procedure dictates, though for a second the line of MPs could be confused for a makeshift honour guard of sorts – of the "war resister" motion. From the ranks of the Conservative Party, 110 MPs stood against. They did not look happy. Perhaps because they knew Bush would not be happy (first it was former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's wicked Iraq criticisms and now this northern dissent. Someone is going to bed angry!)

The motion, first presented to Parliament on May 29 by NDP MP Olivia Chow, was based on an earlier Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration motion (Standing Order 108(2)) in December 2007.

It called for the creation of a special government program to "allow conscientious objectors and their families ... who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations … to apply for permanent resident status."

The motion also called for the government to immediately "cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals."

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Federal government quietly releases $490B military plan

The Conservative government has quietly released the details of its extensive plan to beef up the military, including spending $490 billion over the next 20 years to ensure Canadian soldiers are well-equipped, well-trained and highly active.

Details of the plan, known as Canada First Defence Strategy, were posted Thursday night without fanfare on the Department of National Defence’s website.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: CBC.ca ]

Wake up call to Canadians: Some truly appalling things we should know about our country

[...] offers soundly researched data that will make you cringe, on a wide range of issues. They include: our pathetically low number of doctors, our high comparative levels of both adult and child poverty, our truly awful environmental records, our shameful levels of foreign aid and peacekeeping, our abysmal voter turnout comparisons, our totally inadequate research and patent performance, our high infant and under-five mortality rates, the broad deterioration of our social programs, our increasing gaps in distribution of income and wealth in Canada, our treatment of our Aboriginal people, the rapid decline of our manufacturing sector, our continuing and very dangerous decentralization, our coming confrontation with the United States over water; our mind-boggling, stupid NAFTA agreements regarding oil, natural gas and water…

READ MORE HERE [ Source: The Canadian ]

Stephen Harper government and native chiefs collude in neo-colonial sham apology

Here’s a question for consideration that Prime Minister Stephen Harper government’s apology brings to mind. Would you accept an apology and money from the group, that continued to rape your son, daughter, some other relative, or close friend? Most people might be expected to answer a resounding ‘no’ to such a question. But, to contemplate the ethical implications of ‘yes’ to such a question, is to begin to understand the mentality of two groups. The first group is the perpetrators of the apparent Crimes Against Humanity, who continue to rape aboriginal peoples of their vital cultural memories, their land, their health, and their basic rights as human beings. The second group consists of the so-called “representatives” of aboriginal peoples, who have endorsed an apology from the continued apparent perpetrators of the Crimes Against Humanity.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: The Canadian ]

Stephen Harper’s apology with native chiefs support betrays a public relations scam

I awoke this morning to the same familiar sounds of east Hastings street in Vancouver, as birdsong was smothered by traffic’s din — a day after a government “apology”, and a decade after a Tribunal that started everything.

Faces have come and gone in one day, and in thirty six hundred, but the same cold reality stared back at me today in the hard eyes of angry desperation of the men and women, mostly aboriginal, who share these streets, and who never rest.

READ MORE HERE [ Source: The Canadian ]